RM Williams Way

We woke to early morning fog. Had breakfast, packed and headed off. We were going into the outback now. But first another look at the Lutheran church.

We drove via Clare valley. The way to Clare was almost all cropping country after the first few kilometres of vineyards. The wheat fields seemed to stretch on forever. When we got to Clare the country closed in a little, with a narrower valley and lots of little side roads. Nowhere near as Germanically ordered. Also fewer churches and only one Lutheran one. Slackers! Actually there seems to be considerably less money here than in the Barossa. Probably it is that little bit further from Adelaide. The towns are still pretty with lots of lovely stone houses, but few are as well maintained as in the Barossa.

We actually tried to go to a winery in Clare. We had had a Kilikanook wine before and liked it. However they did not open tastings till 11 and we got there at 10:30. Oh well. We visited the supermarket to stock up on food, had a coffee and cake and bought the wine at the bottle shop.

If we thought there was a lot of wheat before Clare, the RM Williams Way after Clare opened up our eyes to the real meaning of wheat belt. It just went on and on and on. Yes the road is called the RM Williams way, and yes we discussed purchasing cowboy hats, boots and a boot scooting licence. I can picture it. Jamestown was the place....RM Williams birthplace........but we dodged the C&W bullet and drove on by.

We made it to Ororroo for lunch. Picnicked in the Lions Park. A little picnic ground by the river and a giant River Red gum. Went for a short stroll to some Aboriginal carvings......a little underwhelming but a nice thing to do after lunch.

After Ororroo the land got poorer and drier, lots of saltbush and scrubby plants, also lots of sandy soil. We were actually in the southern Flinders foot hills, so a constantly changing landscape. Lots of ruins of old farm houses. Not sure where the Goyder line is precisely but around here would seem to be it. We did actually go past the Goyder highway.

The towns seemed to get poorer and scrappier as we headed up, and the birds which had seemed to disappear suddenly appeared again. In particular Black Kites which seemed to be everywhere. Four on the road at one point, and another which zigged when it should have zagged and almost became a hood ornament. Marjan had a little heart attack.

Eventually we started to see higher hills as we approached Hawker. Very sleepy town, but at least the petrol station had an ice cream. Though still the country was beautiful with the hills on either side and scrubby land all around. It was not far before we got to Rawnsley Park Station. This is just outside the National Park but with a great view of the ranges surrounding Wilpena Pound.

We had time for a walk up to the Alison saddle behind our cabins for a wonderful view of the ranges and a look at some lovely wildflowers. We think we are going to love the Flinder's Ranges.

Mengler Hill

Well we again woke to thunderstorm. Not sure if they bounced back from Melbourne, but they were here with just a touch of rain. Still we had a prepared breakfast to come so we just snuggled back under the covers. Even then we got to breakfast early.........like fools we had forgotten that Adelaide is half hour behind........most embarrassing......our host shooed us away.

When we finally came back we again realised that having breakfast made for you is a luxury you should grant yourself on occasion. The stewed pear was a treat.

So fed and rested we set off to explore the Barrossa. We started with a climb into the hills to the west and checked out the whole valley.

Then onto the main road.....winery after winery............sped by, that is not what we wanted. We checked out another spot in the hills to the west of Lyndoch. Real Heysen country with lovely trees and rocky hills. At the lookout was a man who was either waiting for a drug deal or who had had a really bad morning. So we left and visited the lavender farm. No flowers, should have been here last week!

Got a great story about a local community of Germans who settled in the local valley as it was very fertile. They were warned by the local aborigines that the valley was prone to flood. Knowing better they hunkered down. There are a couple of old houses and a memorial to them from the flood seven years later.

One of the things you get when you travel around is the dichotomy between the European and mainly germanic order of the agriculture and the romantic wildness of the surrounds as captured by Heysen. Still those Lutherans persisted, and built churches every couple of miles.

 We drove around a heritage route taking in Bethany, the Mengler family cemetery, Mengler Hill, Angaston, Penrice, Light Pass, Stone Well, Seppeltfield, Greenock,  Noorioopta and Tanunda.

The Mengler family cemetery was a hoot, Marjan was making up stories about one of the Menglers who was in as close to a pauper's grave as could be. She reckons he was cruel to Maria his wife who has a much nicer grave. He must have been a bastard.

Anyway, up Mengler hill t o the sculpture Park and the wonderful views of the valley.

Angaston was a highlight. Gorgeous little town. It also had a dairy, so we bought some cheese, locally made mettwurst, bread and picnicked in the park with a bunch of young German tourists.

We enjoyed a visit to Luhr's Cottage, an 1840's cottage saved as a museum. It was also the local schoolhouse and some of the school books are a hoot. I love the German/English divide as they taught the local Lutherans. Yes Lutherans, the school is spitting distance to two Lutheran churches.
We did not bother to stop for the Seppelt family mausoleum, though there was ample parking for the curious. It looked like too big a hike up the hill. The whole of the way from the main road to the Seppelt winery is adorned by palm trees. Looks really odd. Must look up the Seppelts they sound really strange.

So we got a bit tired and headed back for a nanna nap before our afternoon tea of scones and cream. A walk and drive for some more scenery preceded a BBQ dinner, held around the place of yesterday's sunset picture.

A day in the Barrossa and not one winery!

We did however have a local Chenin Blanc. Not bad.

German Lutherans

So we began our four week journey in a Melbourne thunderstorm. Nothing too violent but plenty of light as we worked through Melbourne at about dawn. It was still fairly grey out of town and we got some heavy showers and more thunder at Ballarat. From there it progressively got better, till at one stage it was 32C in South Australia.

We stopped for breakfast in Beufort, and is is traditional on one of our holidays, I ran into someone from work. Marjan took over the driving then and we headed off in bright sunshine. We came to a screeching halt when I yelled at Marjan to stop at Pink Lake . This is a little wayside stop past Dimboola and it has a salt lake, and yes it is pink.....and I tasted it ....so yes it was salty.

This was among all the wheat you can imagine.

We figured from there we may as well drive through to the Murray, so after picking up some bread rolls, off we headed. Unfortunately I did not pay attention when I set the cruise control and before we knew it we had a SA Police car behind us with lights flashing.  The fine for doing 115 was going to be about $497. Fortunately the police officer felt it would be wrong to book a Justice employee helping out the prison system, so I got way with a warning and a shake of the hand. Whew

We made it to Tailem Bend without further incident and had some left over potato salad by the Murray whilst the local kids enjoyed the water.

From there we crossed the Murray at Murray Bridge, the original one, the first bridge built over the Murray. Marjan was driving so no chance of a photo.

The countryside was getting even dryer than the Wimmera/mallee country we had been driving through. Around Tungkilo it became quite rocky and around Mt Pleasant it seems every local teenager needs to paint signs on local rocks. Shortly after that the countryside became greener and gentler and before we knew it we were driving though the lovely Barrossa.

Managed to get to our digs in time for afternoon tea......which apparently happens daily.....yum. This and a shower helped revive us and we headed into town for an early dinner. We ate at the brewery, yes a little ironic and not particularly yummy. The highlight was a walk in town checking out the Lutheran church. A lot of the original German settlers are buried here. Really interesting.

Back to our digs to check out the sunset.....and early night is called for.

The Road Back

We were planning to do some more Murray River walking, but the morning was grey and at times wet, so instead we hit the road back.

Wheat and barley, mallee scrub and then more wheat and barley.

We decided to branch down the Sunraysia rather than the Calder after Ouyen to check out some different places.

Some great place names along the road, Tempy, Speed, Watchupga, Watchem. Half way between towns you could see the grain silos of both the previous and next town.

Birchip is apparently the home of the Mallee bull. Apparently the local town called Kinnabulla is named after the local aborigines calling for the station owner to 'kill a bull' for big BBQ. The bulls ran wild and big red is a local legend.

Marjan made sure to stand near the front.

Birchip is also pretty much the end of the Mallee. We had not previously noted it but there is not a hill or a river in the Mallee. Well the Murray being the exception. But in three hours of driving we did not cross a bridge. So when we saw some hills and actually crossed a bridge near Donald we knew we were out of the Mallee.

Stopped at St Arnaud, named after a french general from the Crimean war. A lovely town. We had lunch by the local botanical gardens. Too cold to have lunch IN the botanical gardens.

Checked in to our 'art hotel' in Bendigo and went for a walk. We struck it lucky again. It was the Bendigo winter beer festival today, so walking around Bendigo in the cold was enlivened by the many happy people walking around with beer glasses. Great view from the tower just behind the Art Gallery, but it was pretty nippy. So called it a night and went back to get ready for dinner and get our free drink at the hotel along the way.

After a visit to the Art Gallery it will be back to Melbourne tomorrow.

Bye from us

Hattah Kulkyne

We set off for Hatta Kulkyne early. There was still a bit of fog about as we drove down the Calder. The fog burned off soon enough and we got to the national park in brilliant sunshine.

We walked around the mallee dunes for a bit and spotted some nice wildflowers and some webs that had caught the dew. The forest was also alive to the sounds and sights of a range of birds. I tried to shoot one but realized I had not loaded the battery into the Nikon. Doh! The one thing I had to do and I stuffed it up. Oh well!

Anyway, we continued around the park. Spent a bit of time walking around Lake Hatta and Little Lake Hatta. It was very pretty. They have been allowing environmental flows back into this distributory system and the river red gums are proliferating along the shoreline, also the bird life is magnificent. Pelicans, spoonbills, cormorants, ducks, regent parrots, sulphur crested cockatoos, galahs, little corellas, yellow rosellas, white winged choughs, apostlebirds. What a day to forget my birding camera.

The choughs were really interesting, they were in a largish group chattering away and displaying together. We were quite transfixed.

The landscape at Hatta is quite diverse. We were expecting mostly malle with porcupine grass and the odd buloke. Instead we had that, plus lovely stands of cypress pine, black box open forest, quite beautiful river reds and open grasslands in places.

We lunched by one of the many lakes in the area and enjoyed some lovely sunshine and the water rippling in the gentle breeze.

After lunch we cruised along a number of ever smaller tracks on our way to the Murray Kulkine part of the park that runs along the river. We were glad we had the Subaru in a couple of places. This is a really lovely part of the world with the pick of your camping places on sandy beaches along the Murray. It would be a bit of a quagmire in the wet, but lovely now and I suspect quite busy in the summer months.

Back via Red Cliffs to see the red cliffs. A disappointment. The national park had beter everywhere you went.

Mungo

Wednesday

Well we managed to get up early, ven after having a 6 course dinner at Stefano's. Very nice food, interesting locale, in the basement of the Grand Hotel, and very busy wait staff, they made us tired just looking at them.

The road to Mungo started as you would expect from Mildura, normal road with citrus groves and vineyards along it. It slowly changed to dirt road with huge wheat fields, followed by open malle scub with the odd cow, and finally on to salt bush and mallee with some sheep. Through it all we had a huge sky.

Of course the Wentworth council has ensured that the road has all the modern conveniences.

We eventually (90 minues of dirt road) got to Mungo National Park. This is an odd little place. It is part of the Willandra lakes district. The Willandra was a distributory of the Lachlan when there was water in these parts and it formed a series of lakes. They had water till about 20,000 years ago. This meant there was all sorts of life around the water. More recently people grazed sheep around here and the salt-bush that proliferates at the bottom of the old lakes is apparently very tasty for sheep. After WWII divided up the ountry among returned soldiers the sheep farmers ended up with very dry land which eroded severely. The rosion around Lake Mungo meant that the ridge on the lee side of the lake lost most of its plant coverage and lo and behold we found some human remains which are currently dated to about 42K years ago. Mungo Man and Mungo Lady (not me being twee, it is what she is called) have redefined the human calendar.

We headed to the eroded lunette at the far side of the lake to start.

The lake itself had plenty of dry land wildlife

On the outside lee of the lake, the eroded soil is creating moving sand dunes that march east with the wind. Hard to get a sense but these would have been twenty-thirty metres high.

Back near the park entrance a couple of old homesteads provided some interesting recent history as well. We spent most of the day driving, walking and viewing this place. Really interesting.

Spent the night at Mungo Lodge. Great location just outside the national park. We had booked the cheapest cabins as the place, due to its remoteness, is quite expensive. The cheap cabins lived down to any potential expectation. However the chat with the managers and the volunteer teachers who were doing a five week sting supporting the parents in the teaching of their three kids was quite enjoyable. Especially with a drink in hand, and open fire raging, and a beautiful sunset sky just outside. 

When you think this place is at least an hour and a half from anywhere you realise how big the School of the Air service is in country Australia. What was new o us whas the volunteer service of teachers who drop in to assist. They were a retired couple, he was secondary, she primary and they planned to travel and teach in this way. Seemed an awesome idea.

Thursday

Nothing too exciting. We headed back towards Mildura, but we drove west to hit the Darling, and then drove along it till it joined the Murray at Wentworth. Really we did the previous days driving in reverse. Saltbush, to mallee scrub, to Darling river flats.

Had a nice time in Wentworth, checking out the confluence of Darling and Murray, having a walk between the two rivers, picnicking along the Murray and checking out the bird life in the area.

 A Major Mitchell

 Black Kite

Barking Owl

and a Blue faced honey eater

and just to finish up, I bought a card reader and include some wildlife from the Barmah.

A darter

An azure kingfisher

A pelican




 and a great egret

Winter Blues

Saturday

Well our short winter break kicked off on Saturday morning. Off after breakfast and through town up the Hume. We stopped off at Kilmore for break and had a cuppa at the local bakery. We got into a chat with a local, about 70, who was bemoaning how busy it was these days. After checking out the local market and buying a couple of books we were back on the road.

Got to Echuca at about lunch time. The sun was shining but it was old. The Winter Blues festival had taken over the old part of town and parking was a slight challenge. We managed to get a parl and wandered in for some lunch at the pub. We then wandered around checking on bits of music here and there. We managed to check out three or four acts in bits and pieces and we managed a whole set for the band at the Start Hotel. We did not know any names so we just soaked it in regardless of who they were.

Late in the aftenoon we headed to our accommodation across the river. Moama on the Murray. A modern corrugated iron arrangement of small to medium bain/houses around some water and by the river. We wandered to the river and spotted a Little Eagle (perhaps Whistling Kite) nest and two birds in it. Right over the water.

After settling in we headed back to town for some dinner and more music. We tried a couple of places but they were packed and we were not going to get fed. Oh Horror. In the end we settled into the local Indian place. Not bad but the service was inexperienced and slowish. Still we got a sit down feed. After that we checked a couple of places but decided it was indoors or we would freeze. We found a spot at the Echuca Hotel and the band were playing pretty straight enjoyable blues, so there we sat through a couple of sets and a dessert.

Sunday

Got up early....surprise and walked down to the river to check out the birds. Awesome watching them getting ready for their day. I don't have photos as I have lost my memory card reader and cannot get anything off the Nikon till I get home.

We headed in to a market at Moama. Quite large and diverse. We had some of the best hot doughnuts we have eaten in a while. Bought some dinner stuff and generally wandered.

Went into Echuca and booked a riverboat cruise. An hour on a riverboat with Lisa and the Moneymakers (or something similar) doing some softish blues. Not a bad way to spend some time. The sun was mostly shining and the cold could be warded off with a visit to the engine area which was nice and warm.

The afternoon got really cold but after buying me a beanie and warpping Marjan up in a blanket we managed to hold off and watch Fiona Boyes for a set at the outdoor stage at the Star. Frozen solid we retreated to the warmth of our room and our home cooked steak with a book.

Monday

Another boat trip. We had booked this one from home. A wander through teh narrows and the Barmah Forest. It was a brief drive up to Barmah and we ended up being the sole participants in the trip. Our captain, John, was quite knowledgeable and was very interesting. We were particularly taken with the fact that the Murray along this section is actually higher than the surrounding countryside and lakes and that the tributaries flow out not in.

Even better we got a great view of an Azure Kingfisher, as well as egrets, cormorants, darters, whistling kites, a white bellied sea eagle, ibis, pelicans etc etc. We were on the water for a couple of hours with a short break on land to visit a beautiful huge River Redgum that is invisible from the water.

We got back pretty cool, but managed to sit by the river munching our picnic for a while anyway.

We then had a bit of a drive through the Barmah spotting brumbies, very shaggy, as well as roos and emus.

A nice time was had by us. 

We headed back and I had a huge nap whilst Marjan walked along the river.

Dinner at the bowls club was interesting for the palatial nature of the place

Tuesday

A final visit to the Little Eagles before we set off for Mildura.

The initial part of the drive was through 3 degree frost and fog. Not a lot to see.

As we got to Swan Hill it opened up and we got the views of the irrigation agriculture up here. Huge it is .........huge. We even spotted an Australian cricket bat willow plantation.

We spent a fair bit of the day driving, but a break at Gol Gol with some local citrus, a view of the river and some lovely parrots was very pleasant.

We booked into the Grand for the night, so we could go to Stefano's downstairs for dinner. nHope it is worth it. We had a bit of a walk around Mildura and cheked into the Information centre for some info on Mungo.

A transition day really.